Category: Books

Visiting with old friends

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God’s Country, the 22nd novel by William Kent Krueger featuring Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor, arrived in my “smart” phone Tuesday morning, and I dove right in. This is a review of the first three and half chapters, which left me in tears and smiling.

The book begins with a family reunion that includes a trip to the cemetery, and so in that first half-hour of the audiobook we are reintroduced to all of the most important people in Cork O’Connor’s life, including lost loved ones. It is a brilliant way to bring the reader/listener back into a beloved world we have visited 21 times before — but it’s also a brilliant way to introduce that world to a reader/listener who decides to start with the 22nd book.

Best of all, when I got home from my morning errands, the second half of Chapter 4 was about to (re)introduce us to Henry Meloux, the ancient Ojibwe who I would argue is the real hero of the O’Connor books and at the very least their spiritual center. I always love it when the story brings us to Crow Point. 

As a wannabe professional author, I found these chapters as good as any master class. As a reader, I am hooked and eager to keep following the story. (And as a reader/listener, I would be remiss in not acknowledging the work of narrator David Chandler, who brings these characters fully to life time and again.)

If you are already a fan of Krueger and Cork O’Connor, let me alert you to the arrival of a new book. If you’re unfamiliar, let me heartily recommend you check out this series, which begins with Iron Lake — or you could test my theory and start with God’s Country. I very much believe either option will get you hooked.

Reset button

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I have been retired, for the most part, for 15 months. I still do about 10 hours weekly of clerical work for the last day job. Actually, I never had a “day job”; pretty much every job I ever had required working nights and/or weekends. And come to think of it, I haven’t worked a regular 40-hour week in 10 years.

When my position was eliminated (“Nothing personal, it’s a financial decision”), it was my full intention to work for myself from that moment on. I declared myself a full-time author and started an online “newspaper” for the local news desert southeast of my home. After four months a paper on the other side of the bay decided to recruit me for their open editor’s job, and they were so eager to fill the position that they agreed to let me work 28 hours a week so that I could maintain my online newspaper on the side.

Truth be told, my side hustles never brought in enough revenue to pay the bills. Social Security and the 28-hour job kept the lights on. But I really enjoyed the four-ish years that the online news site survived. I was filling a void and making my own way.

I was also stalling. If I really wanted to be a full-time author when I grew up, taking on two news-gathering jobs was an excuse not to grow up. 

I retired 50 years to the day after I started my first full-time job. For these past 15 months, technically, I have been what I wanted to be when I grew up: A full-time author, with a part-time clerical job to help with groceries. Funny thing about growing up: It seems I don’t wanna.

Monday always has been a good day for a reset, and I write this Sunday evening with my finger poised over that button. Will this be the week that I finally start being a full-time author in practice as well as in theory? The fact that I wrote it as a question, not as a declaration, is telling.

I know me. And if you’ve followed this blog, you know me, too. I’ve made declarations before. The first time I declared I was going to become a full-time author, the goal was my birthday in March 1990. I’m currently two-thirds through a novel that I once declared I would publish by the end of 2021. And so I’m going to leave it as a question and not a declaration like, “Yes! From this day forward I am a full-time author!”

But keep an eye on me for me, please. Feel free to ask how my new book or next album is coming, as politely or as rudely as you wish. You don’t even have to be interested in reading or listening to them; just receiving the question will motivate me. At least I hope it does.

Being accountable to someone is a good motivation. I’m planning to have a spaghetti dinner at Mary’s house this afternoon, and my goal is to read her what I’ve written today. That seems to be a good way to reset my brain and motivate me; we’ll see how that works.

If pressing the reset button does work, and the good Lord willing, from this day forward I will be an actual full-time author. The thought both excites and frightens me.

I have another book in me

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If you pay attention to such things, you may have noticed I added a widget to the front page a week or two ago with this artwork and a caption that says, “My next book.” I am 95% sure that I will stick with that title, although I suspect the cover will need some tweaking before it gets into your hands (unless, of course, enough of you say, “That cover is gorgeous as is, I can’t wait to hold it in my hands”).

And about three weeks ago, for the first time, I wrote a blog post specifically designed to lead into the rest of the essays I’m collecting for the book. “What I Came to Say” summarizes the themes I’ve been writing about especially during the last three years. I have gathered about 150 or so reflections about each of these themes and am in the process of organizing them into sections. The Streak is in there — this today is #2,196 if you’re keeping track — as well as my retirement from the day job, adjusting to life without Red and my renaissance with Mary, ruminations about solstices, what my golden retrievers keep teaching me, my efforts to encourage you by trying to encourage myself, the ongoing struggle to avoid being sucked into the constant political warfare that tempts us daily, and, of course, the main thing I have come to say: Love God, love your neighbors, and we are all neighbors.

This book will be a little different in that I am not choosing the contents all by myself. A small handful of readers have begun, on their own, looking back into my archives to add a “Like” to things I wrote some time ago, and I’ve been paying special attention to what they’ve found. It feels like a friend combing through my files and saying, “How about this one, Warren? There’s some good thought here.” 

And the decision to pick 150 posts is a new record for me. Most of my blog collections have fewer than a hundred entries. I love How to Play a Blue Guitar, but it has only 24 stories, poems or reflections. My last book, See the World!, has 72 essays inside. So this puppy will add a bit of quantity to the quality.

It’s still my intention to publish at least one more book this year in addition to this one, but this one is the one that’s rounding the last turn and heading down the home stretch, so it is the first I am calling to your attention. This is the book I am most confident will be ready for you to put under the tree for that loved one who says, “Please, dear, I want a new Warren Bluhm book for Christmas.”

I will give you a heads up when it comes available for pre-order. And here is a handy place to go for anyone you know who would like more than one of my books.